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According to a Science Magazine report, Huan Xia of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Frido Welker of the University of Copenhagen identified a Denisovan rib bone found in Baishiya Karst Cave on the Tibetan Plateau among the remains of yaks, deer, hyenas, wolves, snow leopards, golden eagles, pheasants, and bharal, an animal also known as the blue sheep. The identification of the hominin rib was made through the analysis of proteins in its collagen with zooarchaeology by mass spectrometry, or ZooMS. The amino acid sequences in the rib were determined to be a close match to those found in...

PBS NewsHour Here is the transcript JUDY WOODRUFF: Scientists working in Greenland have identified the oldest samples of DNA ever found on Earth. By analyzing this two-million-year-old genetic material, they have revealed how Northern Greenland was once a wildly different environment than the cold polar region it is today, one teeming with ancient wildlife and plants, including some that scientists thought had never lived so far north. William Brangham is back now to explore this with one of the researchers who made this discovery. WILLIAM BRANGHAM: For more on this remarkable discovery, I’m joined by one of the lead scientists...

A scientific magic trick that pulled a lot more than a coin from behind the mammoth's ear. A preserved mammoth foot in a permafrost environment. Image credit: Love Dalen ============================================================================= Freeze-dried skin samples of a woolly mammoth found in Siberia have enabled scientists to create a 3D reconstruction of 52,000-year-old chromosomes. The achievement is a world-first for ancient DNA, and reveals which genes were active in the skin cells when the mammoth was alive. Shortly after the woolly mammoth died it spontaneously freeze-dried thanks to the weather, preserving its nuclear architecture in a dehydrated state that made it possible to...

An elderly man found wrapped in tarp near Medicine Bow Peak still has not been identified. It’s being investigated as a homicide, the Albany County Sheriff’s Office said on Tuesday. An unidentified body found under suspicious circumstances near a popular recreation area July 4 is being treated as a homicide, even as investigators are still trying to identify the man. The body is believed to be that of an elderly male and was found wrapped in a tarp at the Mirror Lake Picnic and Fishing Site near the base of Medicine Bow Peak, according to a Tuesday statement from the...

Dravidians are an ethno-linguistic people group predominantly found in southern India, Sri Lanka, but also Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and the Maldives. The historical origin of Dravidians is a highly contested topic with theories that are often heavily politically motivated. But an increasing number of archaeological, linguistic and genetic studies seem to slowly uncover an ever-developing yet consistent story. Dravidians probably started out from the southwest of Iran (around Zagros mountains) when migrants from the Proto-Elamite period of the Elam civilization, probably in a bid to escape the increasingly domineering Sumerian civilisation and to spread their own culture (proto-elamite scripts are...

King Ghezo ruled Dahomey from 1818 to 1858, a period marked by military conquests and the transformation of the region's economy, heavily reliant on the slave trade. The kingdom of Dahomey, with its capital at Abomey, was a dominant power in West Africa, known for its aggressive raids on neighboring regions to capture slaves. These captives were either traded for European goods, forced to work on royal plantations, or sacrificed in elaborate voodoo ceremonies.Local legends claim that several structures within the palace complex in Abomey, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, were constructed using a mortar that included the blood...

Researchers have discovered why some people remain uninfected by the COVID-19 virus—even after their nasal cavities are exposed to it.According to a recent study, these people have faster and more subtle immune responses than those who develop symptomatic COVID-19.“These findings shed new light on the crucial early events that either allow the virus to take hold or rapidly clear it before symptoms develop,” Dr. Marko Nikolić, senior author of the study and honorary consultant in respiratory medicine at the University College London, said in the press release.The study, published in Nature on Wednesday, was a human challenge study conducted by...

None of the United States Presidents in the first 61 years of the nation’s existence were actually born in the country they led. The reason for this is simple enough: The first seven U.S. Presidents — George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, and Andrew Jackson — were all born before 1776, and therefore before the United States was an independent nation. The first President who could actually claim to have been born a U.S. citizen was the country’s eighth President, Martin Van Buren. Van Buren was born in 1782 in Kinderhook, New York,...

The idea of a giant virus lurking on a vast ice sheet might sound like the plot to the latest science fiction blockbuster. Giant viruses were first discovered in 1981, when researchers found them in the ocean. These viruses had specialised in infecting green algae in the sea. Later, giant viruses were found in soil on land and even in humans. But it's become a reality, after researchers discovered giant viruses while exploring the Greenland ice sheet. Before you panic that the viruses could spark the next pandemic, there's good news. Scientists from Aarhus University say the viruses could actually...

...When plant breeders created modern wheat during the 19th and 20th centuries, they focused on crossing and selectively breeding a few key varieties, creating a finicky racehorse of a crop: high yielding but vulnerable to disease, heat, and drought and reliant on a liberal application of fertilizer. Part of the solution, according to a study published today by Nature, may lie in the genetic diversity in 827 kinds of wheat, many of them long vanished from farms...Already scientists have identified genes that, if bred into modern wheat, could reduce the crop's need for nitrogen fertilizer and increase its resistance to...

Most people alive today carry traces of genes inherited from Neanderthals -- the enduring legacy of prehistoric hookups with our extinct cousins. But researchers have long debated when and where that mingling happened, and whether these were one-off romps or commonplace trysts. Now, an analysis of ancient and modern genomes suggests contemporary people's Neanderthal DNA came from a single, prolonged period of mixing some 47,000 years ago...To do that, Priya Moorjani, a population geneticist at the University of California, Berkeley, and colleagues analyzed previously sequenced genomes from 59 ancient H. sapiens, mostly from Western Europe and Asia, dating from between...

BOLIVAR, Mo. (KY3) - At the peaceful Parkview Residential Facility in Bolivar. Inside every door, there’s a great story. “Pretty soon the school bell rang,” resident Bill Pool said, “knew right then, gonna be tardy again.” Inside Bill’s room is a book full of his poems. It sits right next to the shadowbox full of World War II medals. “I think he’s a great man,” Bill’s daughter Carolyn George said. “He still has love,” Bill’s other daughter, Jeanie Price added. Bill Pool enlisted in the Army in 1941 and, after basic training, was off to the heart of the ground...

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Grand Rapids Police closed a 45-year-old cold case Monday. It was all thanks to one woman. Tommie Lee Hill was convicted of a string of sex crimes in Michigan and Indiana, and detectives spoke with other victims in Pennsylvania. Officials said his crimes include raping his young stepdaughters, assault with intent to murder, burglary, firearms and counterfeiting. He was on the run for 37 years. Joe Garrett, a Grand Rapids Police officer and U.S. Marshals Service fugitive task force member, first began investigating Hill's case in 2017. The FBI had handled it previously. In the 1960s,...

In the height of the Maya empire, the victims of human child sacrifice appear to have been very carefully selected.According to a new analysis of ancient DNA led by researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, the chosen victims have something in common. The remains of 64 individuals found inside a subterranean chamber known as a chultún all belonged to young boys, many of whom were closely related. Among them, two sets of identical twins.It's a discovery that contradicts the common notion that sacrifice victims tended to be young girls...We've known about the tragic fate of the children...

Horses were domesticated at least twice, researchers report June 6 in Nature. Genetic data suggest Botai hunter-gatherers in Central Asia may have been the first to domesticate the animals for milk and meat around 5,000 years ago. That attempt didn't stick. But other people living north of the Caucasian Mountains domesticated horses for transportation about 4,200 years ago, the researchers found.Those latter horses took the equine world by storm. In just a few centuries, they replaced their wild cousins and became the modern domestic horse...ancient people from southwest Asia known as the Yamnaya have been credited with being the first...

While excavating a cemetery for medieval knights in Spain, archaeologists came across something unexpected: the remains of a woman. Pierced by sharp objects, her bones suggest she fought and died in battle, likely over 800 years ago. The discovery prompted a flurry of questions about her role in the male-dominated society. Who was she? Why was she buried there? Did she fight alongside the knights? By analyzing her skeleton, archaeologists shed light on her diet, lifestyle and status, allowing them to venture several hypotheses about her identity, according to a study published May 14 in the journal Scientific Reports.

I remember being a kid and seeing my grandmother without her dentures for the first time. It was a harrowing experience. Now my dad has dentures so, genetically speaking, I’m several decades out from needing some myself. However, it’s possible that modern medicine will solve the issue of lost teeth by then, thanks to a new drug that's about to enter human trials. The medicine quite literally regrows teeth and was developed by a team of Japanese researchers, as reported by New Atlas. The research has been led by Katsu Takahashi, head of dentistry and oral surgery at Kitano Hospital....

The world's first human trial of a drug that can regenerate teeth will begin in a few months, less than a year on from news of its success in animals. This paves the way for the medicine to be commercially available as early as 2030. The trial, which will take place at Kyoto University Hospital from September to August 2025, will treat 30 males aged 30-64 who are missing at least one molar. The intravenous treatment will be tested for its efficacy on human dentition, after it successfully grew new teeth in ferret and mouse models with no significant side...

The world's first human trial of a drug that can regenerate teeth will begin in a few months, less than a year on from news of its success in animals. This paves the way for the medicine to be commercially available as early as 2030. The trial, which will take place at Kyoto University Hospital from September to August 2025, will treat 30 males aged 30-64 who are missing at least one molar. The intravenous treatment will be tested for its efficacy on human dentition, after it successfully grew new teeth in ferret and mouse models with no significant side...

Researchers in Japan are currently working on a medication that would allow people to grow a new set of teeth, with a clinical trial slated for July 2024.